Cotton candy is sugar that is melted, then flung out of tiny holes in a spinning head so it cools into fine threads that look like a pink cloud. Spun sugar was a costly hand-made luxury in 19th-century Europe, and some accounts trace it to 15th-century Italy. The machine version came in 1897, when dentist William Morrison and confectioner John C. Wharton made it and sold it as Fairy Floss. It sold 68,655 boxes at the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis at 25 cents a box. The name cotton candy came later, from a dentist in New Orleans who patented a similar machine in 1921. Australia still uses the original name.

Hampi is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Karnataka, India, with more than 1,600 surviving remains spread over 4,100 hectares. It was the capital of the Vijayanagara Empire from 1336 to 1565. Travellers from Persia and Portugal described it as a prosperous, wealthy and grand city with temples, markets and farms along the Tungabhadra River. By 1500 it was estimated to be the world's second-largest city after Beijing, and probably India's richest at the time. In 1565 a coalition of Muslim sultanates defeated the Vijayanagara Empire, its capital was conquered and destroyed, and the city was left in ruins. Hampi remains a religious centre, with the active Virupaksha Temple at its heart.